


these, our bodies

by rudimentaryflair



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Don't copy to another site, First Kiss, M/M, Missing Scene, im never emotionally recovering from s3 let’s just say, no beta we die like marco, set right before return to shiganshina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:28:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28518642
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rudimentaryflair/pseuds/rudimentaryflair
Summary: They’d been doomed from the start.
Relationships: Reiner Braun/Bertolt Hoover
Comments: 14
Kudos: 75





	these, our bodies

**Author's Note:**

> Title is from Scheherazade by Richard Siken:
> 
> _Tell me how all this, and love too, will ruin us.  
>  These, our bodies, possessed by light.  
> Tell me we'll never get used to it._

Shiganshina at dawn. Breathtaking by anyone’s standards.   
  
Bertholdt sits on the edge of the wall, looking down at the city. The view is spectacular, usually. In the mornings when Shadis used to take them to the outer districts for ODM training, he would be extra slow getting his gear on, taking his time so he could catch the first rays of light spread across the horizon and bathe the world in gold. Seeing the sun hit the windows below them, the town glistening like a jewel mine, it was easy to forget what he was really there to do and just exist quietly, in the daylight.   
  
Even in ruins, Shiganshina gleams, broken pieces of glass and metal winking like stars. If he focuses hard enough, he can almost see what it was like before it fell, the buildings and people sketchily superimposed over the wreckage. He wrenches his gaze away when it starts to feel a bit too much like staring directly at a bloody crime scene.    
  
Reiner appears by his shoulder. He’s carrying two mugs of coffee. Behind them, the sky has barely started to brighten behind the horizon; Bertholdt decides he’d rather watch that instead.    
  
“You’ve got that look on your face,” Reiner says, by way of greeting. He sits down and holds out one of the mugs to Bertholdt, who takes it gratefully. “What are you thinking about?”   
  
He’s thinking that the sunrise isn’t quite the same on top of the wall as it is behind it. He’s thinking that this sunrise might be the last one he ever sees. “Just today, I guess.”   
  
“Do you want to go over the plan again?” Reiner asks.   
  
“No.” And then, because he can’t help himself, “Our friends are going to be there.”   
  
Reiner goes very still beside him.    
  
“I’m sorry,” Bertholdt says, regretting immediately. “That was a stupid thing to say, I shouldn’t have—”    
  
“It can’t be helped.” The look Reiner gives him is stern, but his voice is tired, more tired than Bertholdt’s heard in a long time. “You know that right?”   
  
“I know,” he says quietly, which is the truth. “I don’t know why I said that,” he adds, which is a lie.   
  
They lapse into a tense, familiar silence, the one that had plagued them as cadets on the nights when the walls of the barracks felt too close and they were all too aware of their roles as imposters. Remembering that the bodies surrounding theirs were enemies, that they had no friends, not really, that there was a time limit for the solace they had found. Those were the nights they reached for each other, something unnamed in the space between where their heads were bent together in the dark, breaths mingling.   
  
He feels it now, unfurling in his chest, nervous and warm and quivering with possibility, as Reiner presses their legs together, the whole line of him hot against Bertholdt’s side.    
  
“We’re doing the right thing,” he says, “destroying this evil race once and for all.”   
  
“I believe you,” Bertholdt answers instantly, a bit desperately, as though if he tries hard enough, it’ll be true. He thinks he understands, a little, why Reiner needs to be a soldier sometimes.    
  
He’s suddenly being hauled forwards by the collar, so forcefully that he has to throw out a hand to catch himself.    
  
“And if I told you that everything will be okay?” Reiner demands. “That we could go home after all this? Would you believe that too?”    
  
Bertholdt doesn’t even know where home is anymore. Marley is just a faded memory now, driven away by their time at the corps, their new friends. But they’ve lost those too.    
  
“Hey.” Reiner shakes him, gently, and his eyes snap back to his face. Their noses are almost touching. “Answer me.”   
  
“I would.” His palms are sweaty; Bertholdt presses them against the tops of his thighs. “I would,” he repeats.   
  
One of the hands on his collar slides up to his neck and for one hysterical moment, Bertholdt thinks Reiner is going to strangle him. But it keeps going, until Reiner is cupping his jaw, thumb resting against the joint.    
  
“Liar,” he breathes, and then they’re kissing.   
  
It’s good; it hurts, the realization that Reiner has ruined him for life, because Bertholdt can’t see a world where he feels this again. Can’t see a future with them together, a life where they’re happy, because of the truth they’ve been avoiding all these years: that they’d been doomed from the start.   
  
He’d forgotten it, very briefly, clutched in Reiner’s hand with Eren strapped to his back. He’d begged to be found, but begging only works if the thing you’re begging to has a conscience, is merciful, and the world they live in is anything but. It's cruel and unfair, and it has made murderers of them. Villains, because every story demands one. This is their cut of life, this suffering, and they will burn bright and fast until there is nothing left but a few lingering ashes to find comfort in.   
  
But that's okay—will have to be—because they're burning now: Reiner’s hands on his face, his own resting on Reiner’s chest and feeling his heartbeat flutter under his fingertips like a scared dove. He may not be alive after today but he will carry this feeling wherever he goes next, into whatever follows this life.   
  
They pull apart just as gold starts to seep into the sky, both panting and warm. Reiner keeps his hands cupped around his face for a little longer, staring. The sunrise turns his hazel eyes molten and Bertholdt wonders what he sees.    
  
“They’re here,” a voice says behind them, and their hands drop away from each other.    
  
If Zeke is bothered by what happened, he doesn’t show it, only looks at them expectantly. Reiner nods, resolute, and Bertholdt finds himself doing the same.    
  
They’re warriors. They have a job to do.    
  
The tents are quickly packed away, the campfire doused, their cups swept onto the ground. Bertholdt straps on his maneuver gear in short, practiced movements, watching Shigashina’s ruins glimmer in the daylight. Somehow, he thinks the view won’t be as spectacular anymore.    
  
“Bertholdt,” Reiner calls, right as he’s finished tightening the last buckle on his gear. He stands, and for a moment, they just stare at each other, something unspoken wavering in the air. Bertholdt wishes he could kiss him again.    
  
He doesn’t. Instead, he gives one last glance at the sunrise, before turning around.    
  
“Let’s go.”   
  
They don’t look back.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find this on Tumblr [here](https://rudimentaryflair.tumblr.com/post/639261587059998720/these-our-bodies-rudimentaryflair-shingeki-no).


End file.
